by Tim Pegler
As the newsman works his way along the building, I scan the posters he is about to replace. What I see leaves me reeling. Dizzy with denial. How? There’s no way …
Beneath the words ‘POLICE CADET BASHED’, one poster features a familiar cabbage face, bandaged at the temple. Nigel Collier. Another poster warns: ‘OFFENDER DISTURBED & DANGEROUS: POLICE’.
Collier’s alive! There was no corpse. He wasn’t, isn’t dead. I’m no murderer but … but he’s nailed me again. Branded me. No more Neddy-Neddy-empty-heady. He’s moved things up a notch or two. I’m an offender, disturbed and dangerous. Outlawed. And the police are on his side. They shoot outlaws on sight.
The newspaperman pauses. Lights up again. Trudges around the corner of the building. My chance. I lurch back towards the park. Don’t care who sees me. Raging. Against the pain. Against the injustice. Against the advantage Collier wields so ruthlessly.
I’m a wounded bull. Disturbed. Dangerous. Like Kelly, I now know the press can be as deadly as the cops: In every paper printed I am called the blackest and coldest blooded murderer ever on record.
Relabelled. Reclassified. A retard no more. No longer ‘different’, I’m disturbed. An unknown quantity. More dangerous than they can know.
I lope west. No point returning to the wool store. Emerging from my fury is a steely awareness. An understanding. Things have changed.
More than before, more than ever, the widow’s son outlawed must be heard. Heard and obeyed.
CHAPTER 31
ERIN
The uniformed cops at the counter tell me to wait while they rustle up some detectives. Mum, Mick and I wait on a row of vinyl seats that sigh as we sink into them. Behind us, wine and beer glasses compete on a poster for the title of ‘standard drink’. Opposite us, rows of grainy missing persons stare out from another poster as if they only ever existed in some faint twilight world. I wonder if they look real to the people who reported them missing … and whether Ned’s photo will join them, if he’s ever surrendered himself to a camera.
Dad didn’t accompany us. He hugged me and muttered, ‘Make sure they catch the bastard,’ and then offered to walk Vic Edwards home. I can’t blame him for not coming; he spends enough time in cop shops already.
The detectives take us to an interview room and then ask whether I’ll have a physical examination before we begin. I get Mum to wait with Mick as a female officer and doctor arrive to check out my injuries. Mum’s got enough to deal with without seeing me all roughed up. Again.
In the medical room I scan my reflection. I’m a mess. The bruising on my face has faded to a yellow stain but my ribs and hip are another story, an artist’s palette of purples, maroons and blues. The doctor says I have ‘suspected broken ribs’. No wonder it hurts to walk! I’ve got abrasions on my hips, left cheek, shoulder and chest. Scabbed parallel lines arch across my thigh where Collier’s fingernails raked me. My fingertips are still raw and bloody from grasping at the concrete driveway, trying to get away from him.
The policewoman, Senior Constable Barbara Spencer, says she’ll send an officer to check the Colliers’ driveway in case bits of my clothing or fingernails were left behind. I’m not hopeful. Collier probably hosed the drive down after I left.
The doctor gives me painkillers. He says I’ll need to see him for a checkup in three weeks, in case Collier’s left me with any other nasty legacy. He’ll do a blood test then as well. For a moment, I’m not sure what he’s referring to but then a vile understanding floods every thought. The possibility is suddenly grotesquely, disgustingly real. I explode from the room, scramble for the toilet and throw up. It hadn’t even crossed my mind I could be pregnant.
As I’m bent over the toilet, shivering, Barbara Spencer comes and rubs my back. ‘Sorry about that,’ she says. ‘That was rough. Bloody doctors.’
After my injuries are photographed, I’m taken to an interview room. The questions seem to last forever. The detectives are particularly interested in Ned’s reaction to the rape. They ask a lot of questions about where I think he might be.
As Mick drives Mum and me home, he says he wants me back at work as soon as I feel ready. It’s a relief. Makes my day, actually.
I feel better after talking to the cops, as if I’ve finally stood up for myself. I sleep soundly for the first time since the rape — until I’m awakened by a clatter outside my room.
CHAPTER 32
NED
Bluestone dreams. An airless canyon of cold stone. Walls up, up, up, until stone merges with grim sky. Walls creeping in, closer, closer. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Moving deeper into the canyon, running now, panicked. Funnelled forward, bluestone ahead, beside, behind, then a person, someone waiting, someone there in the distance. Calling to them. No reply. No sound apart from the slap of my bare feet on the cobbled floor.
Close now. Ready to fling myself at their feet. To plead for answers (Where? Why? How?) and an exit from this tomb. Straining to see his face. The head droops forward and I understand. He’s tied in place, strung up like Joe Byrne: a grotesque marionette. I stop directly in front of him. Stoop. Gaze up at a face blackened by fire and death, yet familiar. The head jerks upright. The eyes open, stare back like a mirror. My face. It utters two words, those marked on Byrne’s death certificate. ‘Justifiably shot.’
Leaping away from the body, my jaw locked in a silent scream. Trying to run, to scuttle away. Finding myself tethered, whiskery rope prickling my throat. Then falling, dropping through a platform into darkness. Falling like a stone in a well. Falling through a blackness in which Collier’s bandaged head smirks and plaster death masks — Kelly’s face, my face — flash by. Arms flailing, whipping, clutching for anything to slow this awful descent. Finding nothing. Falling. Flailing.
Waking as my hand cracks against a wooden sawhorse. I’m curled in the rear of a toolshed, wrapped in an old canvas dropsheet that reeks of mineral turpentine, two-stroke and lawn clippings. I shiver. It’s still very dark; I can’t have been asleep for long. I sit up. Rub my hand. Angrily push the sawhorse out of reach. I need rest. Need to be rested and ready for what comes next. Grimace as I stretch my left leg, the ankle round as a grapefruit. Slump back to the dropsheet, right arm curled beneath me as a pillow.
Sleep teases me, circling like a sheepdog, refusing to drop and stay. In the sepia darkness, bushrangers prance through my head, jaunty and defiant. I’m struck by their youth, their everyday frailty obvious in spite of their bravado. Dan Kelly, dead at nineteen. Steve Hart, dead at twenty. Joe Byrne, dead at twenty-three. Ned Kelly, hanged until dead, aged maybe twenty-five.
Bold boys who never became men. Wild boys, forever young.
I think of Ned Kelly nearing the end. Punctured by lead shot, heavy with grief. Given enough rough medical attention to tidy him up for public display. Shown off like a prize pumpkin at a country show. Ropeable that the Jerilderie Letter remained unpublished, that they’d silenced his roars again. Bundled off to the city, where sympathetic faces were few and far between. Nothing left but raw Irish pride.
It’s late autumn, my favourite time of year. I wonder if I’ll see the trees wake from winter, see my eighteenth birthday. I think of Erin, gorgeous autumnal Erin. Walking together, my arm around her, her head nestled against my neck. Scuffing, swishing through whispering gold, maroons, ochres and orange.
My feelings for her less jumbled now. They make sense. I want to hold her; protect her; love her. I wonder if I visit her dreams. Whether I speak in her dreams.
I must begin my task at first light.
CHAPTER 33
ERIN
Obie and Dad are hunched in the hall, loading an avalanche of boxes back onto a trolley. Further down the hall, the door to the piano room is open. A light glows inside. ‘Sorry, love,’ Dad smiles. ‘I know it’s early. See if ya can get back to sleep.’ Early — it’s four-thirty!
I retreat to bed, sore and sorry to be awake. But curiosity itches too much for sleep. I don’t want to know what D
ad’s up to … OK, I do want to know even though it’ll be better if I don’t. Beyond my bedroom door, muted thumps and curses leak from the piano room. I wonder if Dad’s so desperate he’s stealing the piano. Aunty Rhona won’t be happy with that.
It’s getting light as the trolley rumbles along the hall a final time. The front door slams, followed by the gate. A truck engine grumbles to life and then grinds forward and away.
Mum hasn’t stirred. I’ll check things out before she’s up and about. I limp down the hall to the piano room. The door’s still open. The piano is there — but it and the rug it rests on have been pushed to one side of the room. In the centre of the floor, where the piano normally sits, a trapdoor yawns. I lean over the opening and see the rungs of a ladder, stretching into stale darkness.
So these are the steps Obie spoke to Rhona about! They must go down to a cellar — somewhere they could store stuff they’ve flogged. No wonder they were worried about Mum finding out! Mum’d blow a gasket if she knew.
I’m tempted to explore the cellar myself, right now. But it’s cold in the piano room and I’m barefoot, only wearing pyjamas. Hardly in a fit state to climb a ladder, either, what with the busted ribs and all. Later, Erin. Save it for later.
I step to the rear of the trapdoor. There’s a foldout handle and a key protruding from a lock. I grab the handle and, wincing, wrestle the trapdoor backwards. It falls shut with a loud clump, shaking the entire room. So much for secrecy, Erin! I quickly turn the key and shove it up my sleeve. There’s no way known I could slide the piano back into place, so I close the door, hoping Mum won’t look inside. Then I scuttle back to my room and lie down, wondering what, if anything, I should do about Obie and Dad. If I know about what they’re up to and do nothing about it, can I be arrested too?
I wake with a start, hearing the front gate again. Maybe Dad’s back. Or the police. I scramble out of bed and begin to get dressed. The trapdoor key pokes out from under my pillow. The cops can’t find it in my room! Desperate, I jam it into my jeans pocket, hoping to hide it elsewhere when they’re not looking.
There’s a light tap at the front door. ‘Erin, you up?’ It’s Mick. I sense the urgency in his voice. ‘Yeah, hang on. I’m almost dressed.’
I throw on a T-shirt, cardigan and runners. As I open the door, I see Vic Edwards waiting in Mick’s car. The exhaust pipe is puffing in the crisp autumn air.
‘We just had a call from the police,’ Mick says. ‘There’s been a disturbance reported at the centre — strange noises. I want to get there … before the cops do.’
CHAPTER 34
NED
I’m Ned. I’m dead. It’s only a matter of time. I wonder how Kelly felt as he was escorted to the gallows. Was he game to the end, as they say? Did his poor mother need to tell him to ‘die like a Kelly’? Did he think of his father, a convict broken by Van Diemen’s Land, and mutter ‘Such is life’ as the noose caressed his neck? Or was he raging, bucking like a brumby, resisting the wardens, cursing them to hell and beyond — all the while wishing he’d gone down at Glenrowan with his mates, rather than letting the establishment toy with him one last time?
They won’t toy with me. Like Kelly, I am reckoned a horrid brute. I’m disturbed. Dangerous. They’ll treat me with respect. Kelly said it in his letter. To disobey an outlaw is foolhardy.
My hands ache from cutting and bolting metal but, on the bench in front of me, my work is almost complete. Beside it, Mick’s handgun glints as if it has a personality of its own. It’s impatient. And fearless.
Mick’s car was gone when I limped up to the centre. I tried the back door of his cottage. Found it locked. The front door wasn’t. Typical Mick. I crept inside. Took the pistol from the bedside table. Wondered why Mick didn’t get rid of it when he hates what it stands for. Maybe he needs it. Keeps it as insurance against the nightmares taking over his life.
I thought about sleeping in the cottage. Didn’t seem right. I’d never been comfortable there. Not since Janine. But I knew where Mick kept the key to the toolshed. Made my nest there instead. Woke at dawn, aching and cold. Gathered tools. Began work.
Every story needs a beginning, a middle and an ending. I won’t be silenced. I’ll have my ending. On my terms. Soon.
CHAPTER 35
ERIN
We swing into the car park at speed, tyres churning the gravel. There’s a ker-boomp ker-boomp as we mount the gutter, heading for the ancient peppercorn in the centre of the yard. ‘Dammit!’ Mick curses as he brings the Valiant to a skidding stop beside a police panel van. There’s an officer in the driver’s seat, thumbing at the handpiece for his two-way radio. Another policeman is at the door of the main building, apparently checking the locks.
Mick bounds over to the police car. ‘Hello, I’m the centre manager. What’s the problem?’
‘We’ve had reports of an intruder. Constable Steele is checking whether the locks have been tampered with, Mr …?’
‘Hartnett. Michael Hartnett. Look, I can check the place out. There’s no need to trouble —’
I’m out of the ute, sprinting, as soon as I see the toolshed door ajar. After a few strides I can’t feel the pain in my ribs, just the dread filling every vein and artery with ground glass. I see a hand grasping the heavy door from within, a hand and a glint of metal. I’m certain I have to get there, be there, do anything, everything in my power to stop him from stepping through that door.
Behind me, the police loudspeaker is barking. The words spew out, meaningless. Got to get to that shed! I’m within twenty metres, fifteen … terrified I’m not close enough. And I’m right.
A tall figure emerges from the sliver of doorway. He wavers, as if uncertain. His armour gleams the silver of new corrugated fencing iron, cut and bolted into shape. Somehow the shining chest-plate and familiar post-box helmet are more medieval knight than menacing bushranger, more tinman than iron outlaw. But their intent is clear — doubly so when I see the gun.
CHAPTER 36
NED
Ned Kelly became his armour. Inside it, the ladies’ man couldn’t dance. The marksman could barely take aim. The equestrian couldn’t ride. The orator couldn’t be heard.
The iron suit made the man a monster, bred for battle. A juggernaut, striding forward. Towards death.
I’ve never ridden a horse. Never fired a gun or spoken a word. I’m no warrior, no flirt, no death machine. My armour won’t even stop bullets. But it protects me. They can’t see my fear.
I wonder if Kelly was scared or past caring. His mother and baby sister gaoled, his plans to derail the police train thwarted. His mates dead or about to be. His supporters scattered. Enemies wriggling around him like maggots. His body tenderised by ninety-seven pounds of iron and peppered by lead pellets. Vision reduced to a sliver. Noise. Everywhere noise.
Police shouting orders. Drunken curses from the inn. Gunfire. The ratchet of reloading. Horses whinnying. Leather straps creaking in his armour. Footsteps fracturing twigs on the frosty ground. Heart clanging like a church bell inside his iron chest. And his breathing, laboured and loud within the helmet. Each breath a reminder it may be his last.
The morning sun sends golden darts through the slit in my helmet. I don’t mind being blinded. Part of me doesn’t want to see what’s coming. It doesn’t matter. As long as they see me.
Sirens complain in the distance. Someone is firing words through a loudspeaker. They bounce off my armour. The only words that matter now are clasped in my hand. My story, my truth. My Jerilderie Letter.
Taking a single step forward now, uncertain how to proceed. Pain erupting in my ankle, causing me to stumble, to teeter. I almost drop the gun.
CHAPTER 37
ERIN
Commotion behind me but I’m committed. Pitching forward, screaming, ‘Ned! Ned!’
He twists his body towards the sound. I hope it’s enough to obscure the pistol from the police. He raises his other hand, holding up a block, no, a book of some kind. I realise he’s bli
nded — he needs to shade the slot in his helmet so he can see.
It’s all the advantage I need. Ten metres, five … I hit him like a cannonball. We hurtle backwards into the shed. There’s a clatter as Ned’s armour collides with the workbench and his helmet bounces onto the concrete floor. I ricochet off his iron chest, sprawling into the python embrace of a coiled hose. Entangled, frantic, I’m yelling again: ‘Ned! Shut the door!’
He looks winded, maybe stunned, just leaning forward, one arm steadying himself against the bench. ‘Ned!’ He dumps the gun and the book (why a book?) on the bench. He lurches to the door, begins to push. There’s a grind as the rollers resist the movement. I struggle upright. I can see the young policeman, Steele, charging towards us, a pistol in his hand. I stagger to Ned, my ribs molten, and push against his back. The door begins to roll, gathering speed. As it slams against the doorframe, there’s a rapping on the metal. ‘Police. Open up!’
I scan the shed; Mick’s tools hang on a handyman’s mural of hardware silhouettes. I snatch a tomahawk from the pegs and wedge it under the door.
Steele raps on the door again. ‘Edwards — come on out. Do not harm the girl.’
Then I remember the newspaper. The police still think Ned is dangerous. Maybe more so, now they’ve seen the armour. And if they’ve seen the gun …
I limp to the door. ‘Ned is not going to harm me but he won’t come out while you’re outside. Now get the hell out of here! I’ll talk to Senior Constable Barbara Spencer and no one else.’ I wait until I hear footsteps on the gravel. Then, for the first time since the rape, I’m alone with Ned.
